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This next wedding provides endless inspiration for all you brides planning an outdoors affair. The bride, Vanessa, brought her love of vintage and all things sweet to her March wedding to now-husband Alex. Frankly, we couldn’t be more in love with the bridesmaids’ dresses in every shade of pastel, or the dessert bar with treats aplenty. Thanks to Vanessa for sending her wedding our way, and also to Ben McGee for taking such gorgeous captures!

From the bride, Vanessa: We both love vintage and spend half our lives scouring thrift shops and vintage shops for the perfect find. We knew we wanted our love for all things vintage to be present. We also both work at a cake shop so that was something we definitely wanted – a giant dessert party! We are both vegan as well so it was all about our love for good vegan food, cute vintage finds and most importantly a reflection of US!

Words that describe our wedding would be vintage, giant dance party, girly, fun, whimsical, fun. We couldn’t decide on a colour scheme and after finding photos of my grandmothers wedding I decided i wanted to have a rainbow wedding with my bridesmaids in purple, mint, tiffany blue, pink and yellow!

Our DIY projects were making the cake stand our wedding cake is on, making our favours which are little jars of homemade raspberry jam, the invitations and programs were handmade, the bow ties were made because we couldn’t find the perfect colours, we had speech bubble chalk boards for our photo booth too! We made a ring book too as our page boy was young and this was great for little hands! We collected 100 tea cup, saucer and plate sets for all of our guests and found a lot of retro chairs on the side of the road and restored them, it was a lot of fun!

Any advice for future brides? I know this is said so often but Relax. Have things your own way, so many times people tried to push things i didn’t want and I’m so grateful I said no. Don’t worry when you don’t get the stockist you want, it will all work out. We had 3 months to plan our whole wedding which mean’t a lot of stockists were already booked so we just went with the flow and somehow did it! And last but not least don’t spend a ridiculous amount; weddings can still be fun without spending your whole life savings.

I’m getting so inspired with all of these vintage weddings. Getting nervous about taking the plunge into the whole vintage thing though much as I want one. Any tips/words of encouragement would be much appreciated!!

maggie

This is so cute and makes me feel way better about pulling off something adorable in a limited amount of time. Love all the colors!

Hey thank you everyone! In the next few days i will be uploading pictures and more information on everything. Thanks for the great comments!

Kris

They got married at my uni!! Totally cute!

Tim Salmon

For anyone interested, my wife (Sharleen Salmon) made all the brides maid dresses. If anyone is interested in getting any specialty dresses made that wont break the bank and are made to suit your personality she is happy to meet with you. You can contact her on outofstepbodypiercing@live.com.

Vanessa Chant

@Frances – take the plunge and do the vintage wedding! It’s the best decision we made because it means your wedding is timeless, beautiful, unique and you! We also had so much fun finding unique and different pieces that nobody else will have! Highly reccomend it as I’m sure the ruffled team would too!

where on earth are those bridesmaids dresses from????? they look like buttercream frosting!

Ally Masterson

I’m so encouraged to see a wedding with vegan food on this blog! My fiance and I are vegan as well and I’m very nervous about doing an all vegan wedding… quite a few times already, I’ve almost caved into allowing some options for our carnivorous friends and family. We are doing a Sunday brunch wedding and I feel like having it completely vegan wouldn’t be such a terrible thing for them though. How did having a vegan dessert party work for you guys?

Marilyn Salmon

Ally, I’m Vanessa’s mum, and I did most of the food for the wedding, although I am not vegan myself. I tried to cook things that everyone would like. It’s not hard to do the same types of things but make them vegan. We had cocktail savouries, and the dessert bar, and we had lots of positive comments about the food from vegans and non-vegans. We even sourced vegan wine, which was probably the hardest thing to find. A brunch sounds wonderful! We had a vegan lunch for Mother’s Day and it was delicious. I say go for it!

Oh gosh where do I start? The dress is to die for and the Volkswagon is such a fun addition. The bridesmaids umbrellas are also such a cool idea, as well as the groomsmen’s bow ties.

Vanessa Chant

Ally, it went wonderfully. I keep having my non-vegan friends telling me that they never felt like they were ‘missing out’ because the food was wonderful. A vegan brunch would be fantastic especially because there are sooo many yummy vegan brunch foods. Try the coffee chip muffins in the vegan brunch book – delish! Hope it goes really well!

so so so pretty. mostly, i’m jealous of that vw bus. i wanted one so bad but couldn’t find one to rent in town or know anyone that has one (the closest i came was a vintage non-running old bug)
so jealous!

this is one of my all time favorites. i love it!

Kristen

Delightful! Can you please tell me about the ring? What is the brown one in the photo made of, and where can we get one? :)

Vanessa Chant

Hi Kristen, The ring is made of 3 different types of australian timbers :) We got it made by Mark at Heart on Sleeve http://www.heartonsleevejewelery.com :) He did it for a great price and it’s an awesome alternative for a guy who doesn’t want to wear metals! Hope you see this post!

Rachel

Hi there,
Your wedding is gorgeous!
I’m getting married in March 2012, and also have the rainbow theme happening with my bridesmaids, who are in apple green, baby pink and lilac. :)

I have also ordered coloured parasols to match their dresses, and they are having wrist corsages for their flowers instead of bouquets, otherwise there would be too much to hold for them.

I’m very excited and everything is coming together nicely! :)

Thanks for sharing your photos and experience!!!

Nicole

I love your wedding!
Especially the flower girl dress, can I ask where did you find this!!:) I am looking for something similar and have no idea where to start!
Thanks:)

WEDSI

Great location, very romantic and laid-back. Looks like a very happy and sweet wedding. And the couple look amazing

Chloe

Absolutely beautiful! I completely agree that a wedding should refect the couple – their personalities, loves etc – instead of falling into the trap of traditional commercialism. I am completely in love with the theme, decor AND THOSE DRESSES! It looked like a fabulous celebration!

Frank

Where can I buy those shirts the groomsman are wearing? How can someone contact the groom or the bride and find out?

Thanks !

vanessa chant

Hi frank, I’m the bride :) the shirts are from an Australian store called roger David which is a pretty casual mens store that has a few suits, we got married on a 41 degree Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) day so we wanted something nice but not suits. If your in Australia this is the shirt http://www.rogerdavid.com.au/collection/shirts/chalkboard-pipe-stripe-shirt.html but they don’t appear to have the shirts the groomsmen wore anymore only the one Alex wore. Good luck frank :) vanessa

Jasmine

I have been looking for polka dot dresses everywhere-any luck with anyone finding out where these are from?

Vanessa

Hi Jasmine,
we actually got these dresses made just from some inexpensive fabric at spotlight! It is a plain pastel cotton fabric with a polka dot fabric over the top. If you are in Australia you can contact her via her business at outofstepbodypiercing@live.com. otherwise try looking for fabric and a nice dress maker :)